Photoville: Bigger, and Covering the Waterfront

ALMOST everything is bigger at this year’s edition of Photoville, the annual Brooklyn photography festival that runs through Sunday in Dumbo. Even the beer garden.

Now in its fifth year, Photoville presents a dizzying array of exhibitions for free, centered this time on the waterfront under the Brooklyn Bridge. Fifty-three shipping containers have been converted into exhibition space, filled with work by hundreds of photographers. Additional displays, by the likes of National Geographic, are on view outdoors.

The focus is largely, but not exclusively, documentary, often with an undercurrent of activism: These images resist the pose of neutrality.

“I love all photography,” said Sam Barzilay, one of Photoville’s three founders, “but I feel like we have an opportunity to tell people about things they need to know and give them a way to act upon them.”

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Left, photos from Brian Finke’s “The Science of Taste,” and right, Robin Hammond’s “The New Europeans,” both presented by National Geographic.CreditKisha Bari

Strolling through the space, you can see famous names in photography mix with less familiar ones, which makes Photoville a good place to discover new work. “Breaking Point,” a group show by Kamoinge, a 50-year-old collective of African-American photographers, depicts the crisis of American inequality and racism. A solo exhibition of work by the photographer Oded Balilty tracks competitors in Israel’s first transgender pageant. And “Women on the Outside,” organized by the Magnum Foundation and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, explores the effects of incarceration by turning the focus to the burden on those women left behind when men are in prison.

The event is organized by United Photo Industries, which produces other public art events like the Fence, a scrolling outdoor photography show that is currently on view in Dumbo (and in four other cities across the country). Dozens of workshops, talks and other events are also on offer. The aim is to create a community where photographers can show their work, make connections and build skills.

And Photoville offers a very practical advantage for photographers who want to show in New York.

“Renting a gallery for a week costs you thousands and thousands, and I guarantee you wouldn’t get more than a thousand people,” said Laura Roumanos, another founder of the event. At Photoville, she said, “you’re going to reach tens of thousands.”

But enlarging the beer garden wasn’t (only) to satisfy the thirst of visitors, Dave Shelley, another founder, said. The space, which also serves food, is intended as “a place to sit, commune, meet new people and discuss what you’ve seen. And then go back.”